We’re rolling East, homeward bound, as I write this. I sit in our van’s passenger seat, tapping computer keys, writing out the days of my life in my journal. Fodder for this column. But I’m fighting THE NOD. You know it. The chest-directed head bob induced by a smooth highway on a warm and clear day.
A highway sign announcing the next city rouses me. Bassano. Our friends, the Petersons,* once lived there. We often stopped to visit. Today we hummed through, though not without remembering the odd thing that happened last time we stopped.
I’ll bet characters come and go in your life stories too. I hate losing track of mine. First the “How ya doin?’” calls dwindle and stop. Greeting cards, too. It seems natural. That happened to us and the Petersons.
But on that long-ago evening, passing through, we decided to re-connect. We pulled into town. Punched their old number into our cell. “This number is not in service,” I heard. So we drove to their house. The porch light shone a welcome, same as always. But a stranger answered the doorbell.
“Good evening,” I said. “Do the Petersons still live here?” I already suspected they didn’t. No dogs barked and a butt bucket sat outside the door. Petersons never smoked.
His puzzled gaze met mine. “Huh?”
“Edna and Carl Peterson. They don’t live here?”
“Who?”
“Old friends. They lived here a few years ago. Any idea where they went?”
He frowned. “Oh…. THEM. Um... I heard she’s living over by the hospital, and I’m pretty sure he moved into Calgary.”
And just like that, I found myself standing lonely on the porch. With a twist in my story, two less friends on my list, and one sad mystery. Her, over there? Him, elsewhere? Why? What happened?
Like I said, I don’t like losing track of old friends. I pined for more details, so did some sleuthing. I found no leads at all. Not on Facebook, not in the phone book or any other book.
I’m comforted that God, the author of life, knows the entire book buried in all of us, from preface to epilogue. Knows it – but doesn’t dictate it. He lets us make major plot choices, wise or unwise. As in our friends’ story, not all our chapters have happy endings.
As we buzzed through Bassano today, I put that memory back where I’ve stored it. Sheathed in regret that we didn’t keep the friendship warmer. Piled under wishes that we could have helped. Wrapped in hope that something in our old friends’ story has changed for the better since we learned the thing they didn’t share. But mostly, suffused with prayer that even if they couldn’t find their way back to each other, they had good friends to keep them stable and faith in Jesus Christ to keep them strong.
Because even without happy endings, keeping God on our page, Christ between every line, and wise friends in every paragraph always guarantees new beginnings.
I pray they found that.
*Not their real names
